Fibrate Plus Statin May Pose Heart Risk to Women

By John Gever, Senior Editor, MedPage Today

The FDA said it was concerned about trial data suggesting that adding a fibrate drug to a statin increased the risk of cardiac events in women and will convene an advisory committee meeting next month to review the findings.

The agency was reacting to a new analysis of the ACCORD-Lipid trial, which tested the addition of delayed-release fenofibric acid (Trilipix) to simvastatin (Zocor) in diabetic patients.

Main results from the trial, announced in March 2010, indicated that the combination did not reduce cardiovascular events relative to patients receiving only the statin drug.

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The Best Part of Waking Up Also Lowers Stroke Risk

By Crystal Phend, Senior Staff Writer, MedPage Today

Women who start their day with a cup of coffee may be protecting themselves from stroke, according to a Swedish prospective cohort study.

Among 34,670 women, those who reported drinking at least one cup a day at baseline had a 24% reduction in stroke risk (95% CI 0.66 to 0.88) over a decade, Susanna C. Larsson, PhD, of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, and colleagues found.

"Given that coffee is one of the most popular beverages consumed worldwide, even small health effects of substances in coffee may have large public health consequences," they wrote online in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart

Many Women in Canada's Pension and Retirement System Are FallingThrough the Cracks

By NEIL SCOTT, Postmedia News

A disproportionate number of women are falling through the many cracks in Canada's pension and retirement system, delegates at a conference in Regina were told Thursday.

Barb Byers, a vice-president of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) as well as former president of the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour, said major reforms are needed to the pension system to benefit both men and women.

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Maternal Stroke History Tied to MI Risk in Women

By Todd Neale, Staff Writer, MedPage Today

A family history of stroke -- especially among female relatives -- may help predict the risk of acute coronary syndromes in women, a large prospective study found.
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The Future is Gray, Small & Female: Disruptive Demographics and Transportation Tomorrow | MIT World

Steps Women Must Take for Better Retirements - The Best Life (usnews.com)

By Philip Moeller

It's the classic good news-bad news conundrum. While women continue to outlive men, the consequences of their longevity often include serious physical and financial disabilities. Many older women confront chronic illnesses with limited financial resources, according to recent studies. They are also more likely to live alone and, when their husbands die, many widows are unprepared for a likely drop in retirement income.
[See 10 Key Retirement Ages to Plan For.]

"I think we thought that because women have been working more, that the [financial] gap between women and men would have gotten a lot better by now," says Anna Rappaport, an aging and retirement expert and spokesperson for the Society of Actuaries (SOA). "If you asked us 10 or 15 years ago, we would have said that gap was going to go away. But it hasn't."

The SOA recently issued a study, "The Impact of Retirement Risk on Women." It puts forth a compelling case that women, and their spouses, face very unpleasant futures unless they do a much better job today of managing their assets and incomes. And that future, sadly but realistically, is likely to eventually involve just the woman.
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Betsy Stanford to turn 107

Image via WikipediaBy Ann Scott Tyson Washington Post Staff Writer

Betsy Stanford turns 107 years young on Tuesday, and the spunky matriarch from the District has no shortage of longevity advice - from dietary to spiritual to downright racy.

What to eat? Anything and everything. "Juicy steaks . . . pork chops - as much as you want!" Stanford exclaims. "Everything they say not to eat, I've been eating it since I was 45 years old."

These days, she admits to a particular fondness for a smoothie made of Guinness stout mixed with the nutritional supplement Ensure, a drop of vanilla flavoring and a sprinkle of nutmeg "if [the stout] is too bitter."

"I drink stout. It's good for you, baby!" Stanford said as she held forth with a group of relatives and fellow worshipers at her 107th birthday celebration Sunday at the Wesley United Methodist Church in Northwest.

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Real-Life Golden Girls - NYTimes.com

Image via CrunchBaseby Paula Span

For 30 years, Nancy Fairbanks and Nancy McPhaul have been part of a group of eight friends who jointly celebrate birthdays and other milestones — and hence are informally known as the Birthday Group. “We always said to each other, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to find a living arrangement with private space for each of us and public space, when we’re quote unquote old?’” said Ms. Fairbanks, who is 70.

We were sitting in the skylit kitchen of a low-slung gray ranch house she now owns with Ms. McPhaul, 67; they’ve become Saratoga Springs’s real-life Golden Girls.

No one in that group ever exactly specified how old “old” was. But in 2005, when Ms. Fairbanks retired from the nonprofit organization she led, she decided to move from the rural outskirts into livelier Saratoga Springs itself and began looking for a house. “Who’s ready to share?” she asked the group.
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Bone Mineral Density Screening: Older Women With Normal T-Scores Can Wait For 10 Years

Since 2002, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has recommended that women ages 65 and older be routinely screened for osteoporosis and has suggested that a 2-year screening interval might be appropriate. However, what length the screening interval should be is a topic that remains controversial and undecided, with no definitive scientific evidence to provide guidance.

Now a new study led by Margaret L. Gourlay, MD, MPH of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine finds that women aged 67 years and older with normal bone mineral density scores may not need screening again for 10 years.

"If a woman's bone density at age 67 is very good, then she doesn't need to be re-screened in two years or three years, because we're not likely to see much change," Gourlay said. "Our study found it would take about 16 years for 10 percent of women in the highest bone density ranges to develop osteoporosis."

Source: Tom Hughes University of North Carolina School of Medicine

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58% of older women rely on Social Security for more than half of their incomes.

Image via WikipediaNearly six in ten (58.3 percent) of women age 65 or older receiving Social Security benefits relied on these benefits for half or more of their income in 2008, compared to just over half (50.3 percent) of older male beneficiaries. Older African-American and Hispanic women are especially reliant on Social Security, with almost three in ten (29.2 percent and 28.0 percent respectively) having no other source of income in retirement, almost double the share of white women (16.6 percent). These statistics are from the Social Security Administration.
Source: Social Security Administration, “Income of the Population 55 or Older, 2008,” April 2010, Tables 9.B1, 9B4.

Facts of the Day | Retirement USA

How Retirement Planning Shortchanges Women - WSJ.com

Image via WikipediaBy RESHMA KAPADIA

After a long career managing large accounts for an insurance company, Lynn Brooks is hardly a financial novice. But when she sought help from a financial adviser after her husband died, they might as well have been speaking different languages.

Ms. Brooks, who's now 60, knew she had reached the age when her savings should be managed conservatively. Her adviser, however, had something more testosterone-fueled in mind, urging her to buy riskier assets like small-cap stocks. And when she phoned him, she says, he was often in a hurry: "It was as if he was saying, 'Leave me alone. I'll take care of this.'"

Ms. Brooks says she eventually took her business elsewhere -- but only after her nest egg had shrunk 30% over the course of a decade before the crash.
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National Women's Law Center: Survey - Webinars: Women and Retirement Security (September 2010)

As women think about retirement, they may take stock of their savings and realize they don't have enough saved — and they don't know what to do with the savings they do have. They may not know what benefits they can get from Social Security, and how their decisions about when to claim benefits (and their husband's, if they are married) can affect the benefits they receive.

Don't panic! The National Women's Law Center is hosting a two-part series of free webinars to help women prepare for retirement, for service providers, advocates, and individuals.

Planning for the Future: What Women Need to Know About Social Security will be held on Wednesday, September 8, 2010 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern (1 hour).

Featured speakers will include:

• Joan Entmacher, National Women’s Law Center
• Maria Freese, National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare

Planning for the Future: What Women Need to Know About Pensions and Savings will be held on Thursday, September 16, 2010, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern (1 hour).

Featured speakers will include:

• Amy Matsui, National Women’s Law Center
• Rebecca Davis, Pension Rights Center
• Kathy Stokes Murray, Women's Institute for a Secure Retirement (WISER)

These webinars are free to participants, but registration is required.
Link to Registration

Polio Effects Surfacing Decades Later

Image via WikipediaDecades after the last polio epidemic in the United States, people who had long since recovered from the disease are feeling its effects again. The August issue of Mayo Clinic Women's HealthSource provides an overview of post-polio syndrome, its causes and treatment options.

In the first half of the 20th century, polio was one of the most feared diseases in America. Paralytic polio causes pain and weakness in the arms or legs and problems with swallowing and breathing. This occurs when the polio virus attacks and kills motor nerve cells, which control muscles.

Since 1955, when the polio vaccine was introduced, the disease has all but disappeared in the United States. But in the early 1990s, patients who previously had polio and recovered began to report progressive pain and weakness in muscles and joints as well as increasing problems with fatigue.

Mayo Clinic researchers have been following a group of adults in Minnesota who had polio between 1935 and 1955 to learn more about the lingering effects of the disease. Researchers suspect that aging plays a role. "If you've already lost nerve cells in your youth because of polio and the remaining cells have been working twice as hard, you're going to have even more difficulties as you start to lose nerve cells to aging," says Anthony Windebank, M.D., neurologist and director of the Regenerative Neurobiology Program at Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

In addition, people may limp or walk differently because of polio damage and, as a result, be more prone to wear and tear and arthritis in the knees. Finally, people who've learned to compensate for polio-related problems may find that the compensation causes considerable fatigue.

There's no specific treatment for post-polio syndrome itself but most symptoms can be treated or managed. For patients who suspect polio is causing symptoms, the recommendation is to seek an evaluation with a provider who understands the illness and has experience treating neuromuscular disorders.

Source: Mayo Clinic Women's HealthSource
Polio Effects Surfacing Decades Later

Off the Charts Blog | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities | Countdown Day 4: Top Ten Facts About Social Security

by Kathy Ruffing

Social Security is particularly important for African Americans and Hispanics. A person’s race and ethnicity do not affect his or her Social Security eligibility or benefit levels. However, Social Security is a particularly important source of income for groups with low earnings and with less opportunity to save and earn pensions, including African Americans and Hispanics.

Among beneficiaries aged 65 and older, Social Security represents 90 percent or more of income for:

• 25 percent of Caucasians,
• 34 percent of African Americans, and
• 33 percent of Hispanics.

As we mentioned earlier, Social Security is more than just a retirement program, and its disability and survivor protections are very important to minorities.

Social Security is especially beneficial for women. Because women tend to earn less than men, take more time out of the paid workforce, live longer, accumulate less savings, and receive smaller pensions, Social Security is especially important for them. Women pay 40 percent of Social Security payroll taxes but receive 49 percent of benefits. They benefit disproportionately from the program’s inflation-protected benefits (because women tend to live longer than men), its progressive formula for computing benefits (because they tend to have lower earnings), and its benefits for spouses and survivors.

Off the Charts Blog | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities | Blog Archive | Countdown Day 4: Top Ten Facts About Social Security

Report: More Seniors Living With HIV :: EDGE New England

Image via Wikipedia

by Steve Weinstein
 
On July 15, the New York City Department of Health released a report that confirmed in the most astonishing way earlier findings that the population of people living with HIV and AIDS was aging: three-quarters of those people in the city are now in their 40s or older, and more than one-third are over age 50.

Just as they do in the HIV population in general, women constitute the largest-growing numbers in HIV-positive older people. The report confirms one released last month by Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the city’s (and the world’s) largest private AIDS service organization.
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USPSTF Expands Osteoporosis Guidelines from MedPage Today

By Todd Neale, Staff Writer, MedPage Today

Postmenopausal women of any age with a 10-year fracture risk equal to or greater than that of a 65-year-old woman and no other osteoporosis risk factors should be screened for the disease, according to draft guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF).

The 2002 USPSTF guidelines recommended routine screening only for women ages 65 and older, as well as women ages 60 to 64 with an increased risk for osteoporotic fractures. The current guidelines contain no recommendation for or against screening in younger women.

An additional change from the 2002 guidelines is a mention of men, albeit only to say that evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of screening in older men. The updated guidance is still in draft form and will be available on the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's website for four weeks to receive public comments. After consideration of feedback, the final recommendations will be released.
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Sports of The Times - For the Love of Soccer and a Lasting Sisterhood - NYTimes.com

Image via CrunchBase

By WILLIAM C. RHODEN

About 1:45 p.m. Sunday afternoon, a caravan of luxury cars and sport utility vehicles roared into the park where hundreds of supporters had been waiting. President Jacob Zuma had arrived. The president was in this town, about 260 miles northeast of Johannesburg, to commemorate the life of Peter Mokaba, an antiapartheid activist.

Five days before the start of the World Cup, the stars of the celebration were a soccer team — a group of 35 women ages 49 to 84. After the speeches and ceremonies, the team, Vakhegula Vakhegula (Grannies Grannies), would play an exhibition game.

Beka Ntsanwisi founded Vakhegula Vakhegula five years ago as a way of providing inspiration for older women. The team usually plays its league games on Saturdays, but this was a special day with the president coming. And Ntsanwisi wanted to have a word with the president.
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New Resource on Addressing Specific Substance Abuse Treatment Needs of Women

Image by kevinliuzzo via Flickr

Older years are filled with many adjustments and challenges, often including loss of spouse and close friends, retirement, and reduced income. Some women turn to alcohol or drugs to help meet these life changes. Because many older women live alone (40 percent of those aged 65 and older [FIFARS 2004]), their substance use is difficult to measure (Moore et al. 1989). Older women tend to hide their substance use because they attach greater stigma to it than men do (CSAT 1998d). Older women are less likely than older men to drink or use drugs in public, so they are less likely to drive while intoxicated or engage in other behavior that might reveal a substance use disorder (SAMHSA 2008).

Substance use disorders in older women often go undetected by primary care professionals because of a lack of appropriate diagnostic criteria and because many signs of abuse can be mistaken for other conditions more prevalent in later life (e.g., cognitive impairment, anemia, physiological consequences from falls). It is not unusual for older patients to show poor compliance with the recommended use of their medications (Menninger 2002).

Download Tip 51 Manual (382 pages)

Women’s Health in California: A Snapshot

A new fact sheet from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research provides a useful overview of some of the biggest health challenges for women in California, including high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, overweight and obesity and cancer screening.

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RA Increasing Among Women from MedPage Today

Image via Wikipedia

By Nancy Walsh, Contributing Writer, MedPage Today

After decades of sharp declines, the incidence of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is on the rise, at least among white women, a longitudinal study found.
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